


A Mother's Love

by eringiles



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:11:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/706937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eringiles/pseuds/eringiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin is alone and in pain, and all he really wants is his mother, but Carolyn will have to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mother's Love

Martin could hear someone calling for Arthur. Which was funny, because his name wasn’t Arthur. But he could very distinctly hear Carolyn yelling at him through the bathroom door, clearly under the impression he was her son. Martin wanted to open his mouth to tell her that he was not her son, but all that came out was another dry heave. Which hurt. A lot.

It felt like someone was stabbing him repeatedly. Curled in on his right side to try and make it stop hurting, but he was heaving and that made him want to swear through the pain, if only he could find the breath to manage it. Carolyn was calling for Douglas now. Which also wasn’t him. He was very definitely not Douglas. But he wished he was Douglas sometimes. Being not Douglas was a lot harder than being Douglas. Douglas, he was pretty sure, would know what to do. Not Douglas just lay there and shivered, holding his stomach like his insides were going to fall out.

The door gave way then and Carolyn finally seemed to remember Martin’s name because she was repeating it over and over again, her hands on his face, thumbs wiping at tears he didn’t know were falling. His face would have flushed with shame if he could think of anything other than the debilitating pain consuming him. Out of childish instinct he leant into Carolyn who had managed to wrap a soothing arm round him.

‘Martin? Martin, can you hear me?’

Martin wasn’t sure if he made some kind of non-committal noise or whether he was just groaning through the pain.

‘Mum, what’s wrong with, Skip?’

‘I don’t know, Arthur. Just go tell Douglas we need to divert and tell him to request an ambulance too.’

Martin kept his eyes closed and Carolyn took charge of the situation. It didn’t lessen the pain any, but it brought with it a minute amount of relief that at least someone was taking charge and he didn’t have to pretend to be quite so strong. His composure was crumbling rapidly as he fell away from Carolyn to dry heave into the toilet again.

‘Oh, Martin. Why didn’t you say you weren’t well, you silly boy?’

There was something reassuringly familiar about an annoyed Carolyn, but there was something else in her voice, something that was confirmed when she put a hand on his sweaty brow. He would have taken a moment longer to relish it if his stomach hadn’t spasmed again and he was curling in on himself.

‘Is it your stomach?’ Martin couldn’t answer. He was in too much pain. ‘Martin, just squeeze my hand if it’s your stomach.’

He must have squeezed her hand because she stopped asking questions and left him for a moment to his throwing up. He felt bereft with her presence gone. He felt suddenly very alone with his pain again. He hadn’t quite realised how comforting the presence of Carolyn was until it was gone. He whined, and told himself it was because he’d accidentally caught himself on the toilet role holder.

‘Martin.’ Carolyn was back, a hand on his shoulder.

‘Martin, come on. You can’t stay here.’

‘No.’ Martin managed, because he dreaded the idea of moving. It made him feel nauseous again just thinking about it. 

‘Okay.’ Carolyn was crouching down beside him again in the small confines of the toilet. Through his blurry vision he could make out Arthur hovering helplessly in the doorway. ‘You’ll need to sit in a seat for landing though, Martin. Health and safety.’

It was in that moment Martin realised how ill he must be and how much pain he was experiencing, because he genuinely did not give a damn about health and safety right now. But it seemed that he didn’t have a choice in the matter because both Arthur and Carolyn were manhandling him to his feet. 

He was right. It was a bad idea. His head was swimming and his vision closing in, and he knew he was going to pass out. He tried to fold in on himself again because that was less painful and would bring him closer to the floor, but his vision was already greying out and going spotty. He folded almost gracefully to the floor, slowed down slightly by Arthur and Carolyn who were calling his name in equally panicked voices.

Martin was oblivious to everything apart from the pain and the reassuring feeling that there was someone there supporting him.

***

Carolyn and Arthur were still there when Martin woke up, hovering beside him as he registered the fact he didn’t want to curl up in the foetal position due to pain. He felt sluggish, but thankfully no longer nauseous.

‘What happened?’

Arthur started recounting the whole sorry tale that Martin had been blissfully unaware of that began with Arthur and Carolyn trying to get Martin into a seat on the plane, and culminated in Martin being rushed in for emergency surgery due to his appendix bursting. Appendicitis and air travel apparently didn’t go very well together. When the symptoms had started a couple of days ago, Martin had just brushed them off as him pulling a muscle moving several boxes up several flights of stairs. Apparently he had been wrong.

‘Also I called your mum, Skip.’

Martin zoned back in then, sudden panic overtaking him.

‘Don’t be mad, Skip. I didn’t call her until we knew you were going to be okay, but I think that just worried her more, even though I told her not to worry, but I thought you’d want to see your Mum, ‘cause I always like to have Mum look after me when I’m sick.’

Martin’s gaze moved to look at Carolyn whom was sat on the other side of the bed, her eyes rolling slightly even though the hand she had on his arm squeezed ever so slightly.

‘Arthur, why don’t you go give Douglas a call and let him know that Martin’s going to be alright before he order’s a Captain’s uniform.’

‘Will do, Mum.’

Martin gave Carolyn a frown as Arthur left the room, his mobile already in his hand.

‘We left him at the airfield dealing with all the paperwork. Emergency landings apparently incur a heroic amount of paperwork, and I think you scared Douglas enough that he was happy to do it.’ Carolyn paused, her hand moving down to cover Martin’s own. ‘You scared all of us, Martin.’

Martin flushed, his eyes skittering away from Carolyn. Now that excruciating pain wasn’t dulling his senses he could feel the full force of embarrassment over the whole silly situation. 

Carolyn was right, he should have said something before the flight. He didn’t even know where they were, if they’d made it back to Fitton or they’d landed at another airfield on their journey to Glasgow. He didn’t really remember how far into the flight he’d gotten up to go to the toilet, because he’d felt so awful from the get go that take off had all been a bit of blur if he was honest. Thankfully Douglas had been the one piloting.

‘m sorry,’ he managed to mumble. And then almost as an afterthought, ‘Thank you.’

‘You don’t have to thank me, Martin. Just promise me you won’t do something so reckless again. I can just about cope with Douglas’ irresponsibleness due to it being counterbalanced by your complete by the rule book living, but two pilots who feel it’s necessary to risk theirs and everyone’s lives onboard my plane is frankly a little too much to handle on a Monday morning flight to Glasgow.’

Martin could see Carolyn’s eyes were watering slightly, and he almost assumed it was due to her anger, but then she reached out her free hand to brush his hair back from his forehead. ‘Please, don’t scare me like that again, Martin.’

He managed a weak smile. ‘I promise.’


End file.
